School district to focus on three areas in new year

Public K-12 schools face challenges on many fronts. As Sturgis Public Schools look at 2013, Tom Langdon, superintendent and Julie Evans, assistant superintendent talked about three areas where they are focusing attention in the coming year: curriculum, finance and the climate and culture of the district.

Curriculum

This fall, all Sturgis students grades 9-12 received a school-issued iPad. The goal was to get the latest technology in student’s hands so they are fully equiped for learning and life after high school.

Schools use terms such as “flipped classrooms,” and “24/7 learning” both references to online learning which allows students to extend education beyond the traditional school day and beyond school facilities.

The newly-provided technology can help Sturgis students meet demands such as those laid out in the Common Core and Michigan Merit curriculum, Langdon said.

Soon MEAP tests will be replaced with Smarter Balance Assesment, a national computer-adaptive testing which should get results back to districts more quickly, Evans said.

Smarter Balance will evaluate higher level thinking skills — not just right or wrong answers — which require real life problem solving ability rather like story problems, Evans said.

To keep abreast with the latest in curriculum and requirements, Evans spends her days watching as changes come down the pike, passing that information on to principals who train the “Professional Learning Communities.” The PLCs in turn keep their peers informed and courses on track to meet the demands.

Together, they sift through the common core standards to identify essential skills with the goal that “100 percent of our students will learn essential skills,” Evans said.

Then through assesment or testing, staff must determine if students learned those essential skills, she said. When a student doesn’t get it, they find out why. With such a wide range of student learning abilities, this step “is incredibility complex,” Evans said.

“If nothing else, the students are on an equal playing field with technology,” Langdon said.

Finance

Funding is a touchy subject for public schools with the “Oxford Foundation” bill on the horizon. It is a Michigan Public Education Finance Act to replace the existing School Aid Act of 1979.

It has the potential to put public schools, as we know them, at risk, Langdon said.

“It would be a whole different ball game,” he said.

If passed, the Oxford Foundation would:

remove district “ownership” of a student, who would be allowed to take courses or an entire education from any public education entity in the state.

offer online learning options allowing a student to access instruction anywhere in the state. The district that provided the online course would receive public funding, based on performance.

funding would follow the student. Currently, a district receives 90 percent of state funding based on where a student is on the first Wednesday in October. In the future, doling out money would be done by the “average daily membership” method — an incentive to maintain a student’s enrollment after the fall count.

early graduation scholarships incentives would be available for students ready to graduate early — $2,500 for each semester they are ahead of schedule.

Page 2 of 2 - “What they do with the money will affect what happens to education,” Langdon said.

The buzz term for those who see risks in the Oxford Foundation is “We’re building a plane while we’re flying it,” Evans said.

While online learning has an important role in education, students don’t have equal access, even with an iPad. And not every student has the structure — at home or within themselves — to be motivated outside the classroom. This way of funding education could widen the gap between privileged and underprivileged students, Langdon said.

“Schools should be the one place that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Evans added, “I think people should be alarmed.”

Climate and culture of the district

The goal of the district is for school to be a safe place on every level, Langdon said.

Students should feel valued, have a voice and be involved in their educational process, he said. Keeping an open and positive climate in the classrooms and buildings is important.

How to balance it with student and staff physical safety is also in the forefront of faculty concern.

“The Connecticut shooting should make every school look over the situation and tighten things up,” Langdon said. “Every time you tighten security, you lose freedom. We’ll sacrifice whatever freedom we need to for student safety.”